My Lords, this is where I can offer an explanation to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, about what I am seeking in terms of prevention. The report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, was by no means the first to raise these concerns. What I am aiming at is not protection for children who commit serious offences, but protection for children in care whose minor offences would not attract police attention if they had been committed in a normal parental home. There is nothing new about this issue; it was the subject of a thematic inspection in 2012 by Ofsted and the Inspectorate of Probation, and was examined by the Justice Committee in another place in the same year. It was also the subject of a report by the Department for Education in 2013. Moreover, the National Police Chiefs Council identified this as a major problem and stated that every effort should be made to avoid the unnecessary criminalisation of children in care by making sure that the criminal justice system is not used for resolving issues that would ordinarily come under the umbrella of parenting.
The evidence produced by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in his report about the importance of prevention through the operation of good parenting, whether corporate or natural, showed that the offending rate for looked-after children was six times higher than that for normal children, but that the rate of their movement into the criminal justice system was not inevitable, as was proved by some very good work undertaken in Surrey over four years which reduced the rate by 45%. That shows that it can be done through good joint working.
The Department for Education issued statutory guidance in 2015, which is generally sound, but the noble Lord, Lord Laming, has shown up once again that there is a lack of consistency—we come back to that vital word—in the way that the guidance is applied in local authorities up and down the country.
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What are cited as driving these children into the hands of the criminal justice system include multiple changes of social worker, placement moves and placements far from home, all of which make children feel angry and isolated and can have a negative influence on their behaviour. The authorities can have some influence over that if they really take seriously the principles that we have already discussed. I therefore hope that the Bill will emphasise the responsibility of local authorities for the prevention of this “unnecessary criminalisation”, particularly as in the phrases brought to our attention by the Police Chiefs Council. I say that in relation to Amendment 9.
Regarding what I seek to do in Amendment 14, which is to do with making certain that they have legal advice, it is unfortunate that my amendment has got mixed up with Amendment 28A, in the name of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. Again,
that is a casualty of what happens if you try to do things during a Recess. I am seeking to amend Part 1 to include a duty on local authorities to promote access to legal advice and representation for children in care. The sort of activities that they would need help with are assessing appropriate education in an area, having a voice in family law proceedings, regularising immigration status and clearing compensation when they are victims of trafficking. It is not good enough merely to provide access; there must be a duty to provide the access itself, which is what my amendment therefore seeks.
If there is one other group of children I am concerned about it is those people who are listed as unaccompanied asylum seekers, of whom there are 2,630 currently around. Nobody appears to have parental responsibility for them and I am worried about the effects of the recent Immigration Act, which says that any responsibility for care ceases at the age of 18 for an unaccompanied asylum seeker. They then have to go home, wherever that may be—and for some who were born in this country that means their country of origin. Only when they are back in their country of origin, according to the Immigration Act, can they appeal against being sent back. That must be a denial of every sort of right, which is why I asked the Minister earlier at a Cross-Bench meeting whether there had been any form of liaison between the Department for Education and the Home Office over the clauses in this Bill.
When we have child victims of trafficking being left to navigate the immigration system, the criminal and family justice system and the national referral mechanism without support and without any parental responsibility for them being cleared, it seems that we are not exercising our national responsibility towards these children. That is why I have tabled these two amendments and I beg to move Amendment 9.